Jason Bateman has made a good living playing laid-back characters whose matter-of-fact likability hides a vein of eccentricity. In the dark comedy Bad Words, which also marks his feature film directorial debut, he plays something different: a miserable jerk. Being Bateman, however, he’s a pretty likable jerk.
This odd combination — the laid-back misanthrope — makes Bad Words an exercise is dark futility. It wants to be politically incorrect, and indeed there are many rants against women, insults to visible minorities, and general verbal mayhem. But you get the sense the movie never means it: this a Hollywood lesson in redemption and the meaning of friendship, all dressed up as a subversive twist on that mythic mini-genre, the spelling bee movie.

Bateman plays Guy Trilby, which sounds like a haberdashery. He’s 40, but he’s discovered a loophole in the Golden Quill spelling bee contest that lets him compete against 10-year-olds. There’s a reason he wants to do this — you know from the beginning that he has an ulterior motive because, in voice-over, Guy says, “I’m not that good at a lot of stuff, especially thinking things through” — and it’s the film’s special secret, the surprise twist that softens Guy and makes him a bit sympathetic.

That’s fine for Guy, but it’s a long haul to find softness and sympathy, and you wonder why it had to be such a secret throughout the film.

Rohan Chand, left, and Jason Bateman

Guy is accompanied at the tournament by Jenny (Kathryn Hahn), an online journalist trying to uncover the mystery of his past (she learns his favourite drink is Wild Turkey, his favourite colour is olive green and his favourite breast size is 32A, which tells you little about Guy Trilby but lots about online journalism). She’s also his sometimes lover, and her erotic cries of “don’t look at me” are part of the renegade spirit of the early part of the film.

In his calm and infuriating way, Guy rides roughshod over the objections of the contest organizers (Allison Janney and Philip Baker Hall, each playing a single note — exasperation), insults the angry parents of the younger contestants, and sabotages the kids who sit near him. At one stage, he persuades a rival that he is sleeping with the boy’s mother, a bit of news that undermines the kid’s confidence. It’s a miserable thing to do, but you’re prompted to forgive it because Bateman is such a charming idiot.

Guy’s main competition comes from Chaitanya (Rohan Chand), a 10-year-old with the kind of chipper personality that evokes the high-spirited children of earlier, less sophisticated cinema. Chaitanya and Guy eventually bond, but since it’s over underage drinking, petty theft and a pre-pubescent obsession with women’s nipples, it gives the movie a rough edge that allow for a few transgressive laughs. A scene where Guy insults the mother of another contestant — the foul words form a comic clash with Bateman’s innocent, all-American face — is likewise funny in a terrible way.

However, there’s a limit to the humour to be found in swearing in front of children, and the amusement inherent in the kid who says the F-word — or in the ability of our anti-hero to spell another F-word, “floccinaucinihilipilification” — has diminishing returns. The word, by the way, means the act of estimating something as worthless. Bad Words is better than that, but it’s not as good as it could have been.